It is named after a character in the 1960 children's educational film Beginning Responsibility: Lunchroom Manners, as featured in the 1981 HBO special The Pee-wee Herman Show.

On the back of Patton's success as frontman of Faith No More, the band was signed to Warner Bros. Records in 1990 and released three studio albums between 1991 and 1999 in the eclectic, experimental style it became known for.

[5] It reunited as a thrash metal band for a series of shows in February 2020 to perform its 1986 demo album The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny with Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian and former Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo.

Mr. Bungle has gone through numerous lineup changes, with Patton, guitarist Trey Spruance, and bassist Trevor Dunn the sole consistent members.

So we just stopped and started writing our own style of music, which was influenced by bands like Camper Van Beethoven, Oingo Boingo, Bad Manners and kind of funky, ska-oriented stuff.

In particular, Spruance noted that Mike Patton had to teach him to play the ska stroke for a performance at their high school talent show.

The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny was followed in 1987 by the Bowel of Chiley demo; it featured a much greater ska presence, as well as the sounds of jazz, swing and funk.

Bradley Torreano noted at AllMusic that the recording was "essentially the sound of some very talented teenagers trying to make their love of jazz and ska come together in whatever way they can.

[21] Patton continued to be a member of both bands simultaneously and Mr. Bungle released its third demo, Goddammit I Love America!, later in 1988, which was musically similar to Bowel of Chiley.

[26] The Los Angeles Times stated in a 1991 article that "Under normal circumstances, you'd have to describe Mr. Bungle's chances of landing a major label deal as... a long shot.

At Warner Brothers' encouragement, it was renamed "Quote Unquote" in later pressings, due to fears regarding a potential lawsuit by John Travolta.

[25][39][40] After this tour, founding member and original saxophone player and keyboardist Theo Lengyel left the band due to creative differences.

[41][42][43] In early 1997, the band began work on a covers album, but it was put on indefinite hold due to Patton's touring commitments with Faith No More.

Ground and Sky reviews have described California as Mr. Bungle's most accessible[44][45] and, while the band's signature genre shifts are still present,[46] they are less frequent, with succinct song formats resulting in an album that the Associated Press called "surprisingly linear".

[47] AllMusic called the record "their most concise album to date; and while the song structures are far from traditional, they're edging more in that direction, and that greatly helps the listener in making sense of the often random-sounding juxtapositions of musical genres".

During the early 2000s, Patton was primarily touring and recording with his metal project Fantômas (which also featured Dunn) and the newly formed supergroup Tomahawk.

He acted in the motion picture Firecracker,[62] narrated the film Bunraku, and did voice work in the movie I Am Legend, performing the screams and howls of the infected humans.

[69] Spruance joined Patton and Faith No More onstage for the first time to perform King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime in its entirety in Santiago in November 2011.

But in a February 2013 interview with SF Weekly, Dunn said there would be no Mr. Bungle reunion: "I've heard the faintest murmurings about it, but honestly I don't think anyone is interested.

The reunion was promoted as featuring Patton, Spruance and Dunn, as well as guitarist Scott Ian and drummer Dave Lombardo, performing The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny in its entirety.

[78][79] On March 23 and 24, Revolver magazine published a two-part press release and interview with Spruance formally announcing that the band, joined by Scott Ian and Dave Lombardo, were currently re-recording The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny in addition to the previously unreleased songs and covers performed during the reunion shows, with an expected release on Patton's label Ipecac Recordings in the fall of 2020.

"[82] On August 13, the band officially announced that the album, now titled The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo, would be released on October 30.

[89] According to Invisible Oranges, Mr. Bungle "cultivated their own complex universe whose parts, embracing both regimen and disorder, inspired awe with increasing perspective and closer examination".

[95] AllMusic described the band as "free-form rock radicals" and said that "Mr. Bungle's sound and approach are a unique mix of the experimental, the abstract, and the absurd".

[98] Prior to the release of their first album in 1991, the Los Angeles Times stated that the band "performs oddball music one critic has described as Bugs Bunny-type jazz.

[36] Mr. Bungle frequently incorporated unconventional instruments into their music, including jaw harp, cimbalom, xylophone, glockenspiel, ocarina, bongos, and woodblocks.

[37] Journalist John Serba commented that the band's instrumentation "sounded kind of like drunken jazz punctuated with Italian accordions and the occasional Bavarian march, giant power chord, or feedback noise thrown in".

[100] Mike Patton's vocals often employed extended techniques such as death metal growls, crooning, rapping, screeching, gurgling, or whispering.

[101] Similarly, critic Patrick Macdonald commented, "In the middle of hard-to-follow, indecipherable noise, a relatively normal, funky jazz organ solo will suddenly drift in".

And I have a sneaking suspicion that they possibly believed we would 'grow up' musically some day and make them some money.Trey Spruance claimed that Warner Bros. cared so little about the band that they once considered delivering an entire album's worth of static noise to the label, expecting them not to listen to it.